PETALING JAYA: The proposed law to regulate political funding has been principally agreed to by the Cabinet, says Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar.
The Minister in the Prime Minister's Department (Parliament and Law) said the policy scope for the Political Funding Bill was presented in the Sept 7 Cabinet meeting.
"The Bill will be drafted where political funding regulators are made into an independent entity to oversee political donations in the country," he said in a statement on Sunday (Sept 11).
Wan Junaidi said the draft of the proposed bill will take into account the views of all stakeholders, including political parties, through engagement sessions.
The draft will also take into account the Cabinet's views that the proposed legal framework of the Bill will be refined by the technical committee on the memorandum of understanding (MoU) on political transformation and stability before it is tabled in Parliament.
"Therefore, this Bill will be attempted to be tabled in the third meeting of the fifth session of the 14th Parliament," said Wan Junaidi.
A memorandum of understanding on political transformation and stability was signed between Putrajaya and Pakatan Harapan on Sept 13 last year to establish bipartisan cooperation.
The third meeting of the fifth session of the 14th Parliament was brought forward to Oct 3 and Budget 2023 will be tabled on Oct 7.
The coming Parliament session will sit for 32 days from Oct 3 to Nov 29.
Calls by civil society for laws on political funding have grown louder in recent months, particularly in light of several high-profile court cases linked to "political donations".
Although political funding laws were first mooted in 2016 by the then National Consultative Committee on Political Financing, they received resistance from several quarters, including from Pakatan.
The committee came up with 32 recommendations to address the lack of laws on transparent political funding, including the creation of the office of the controller of political donations and a ban on cash donations from foreign sources.
However, the proposed Political Donations and Expenditure Act did not make it to Parliament before the 14th General Election in 2018.
In 2019, the Pakatan administration intended to table laws on political funding but could not do so after it collapsed in February 2020.
